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Young Will Parker and his companions make a perilous journey toward an outpost of freedom where they hope to escape from the ruling Tripods, who capture mature human beings and make them docile, obedient servants.

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This old-school but not old-fashioned children’s sci-fi adventure is fun, but doesn’t quite make the literary leap from being inspiring enough YA fare as to be good adult fare. It would be a great introduction to science fiction for young readers, like the more impressive The Keeper Of The Isis Light. The thoughtful introduction in this edition proves very helpful in guiding discussion and thinking more deeply about the book (although perhaps some of these issues are already brought up in the rest of the trilogy).

This is from the same author as the chilling The Death Of Grass, and as the introduction implies, youth writing is simply not his strong suit. The ending is so weirdly paced and abrupt that I briefly thought I had ended up with a misprinted copy that was missing a chapter.

I read this trilogy in junior high. My 11 year old daughter just took it out and I stole it from her to re-read it. It's just as good and juicy now as it was then! Excellent sci-fi dystopian future novel. My teen aged son enjoyed, it, too.

Even if this is a pretty old book, it's still really good. the whole series builds off of the ideas of the time with the space race and the cold war. Will's adventure across France can actually be traced on a map, and all of the places that he visits can be found as French landmarks today. In all, this book is a great easy, quick read and is tons of fun to read to younger siblings.